Milwaukee Bucks, Los Angeles Lakers separating from rest of NBA in Power Rankings

After 6 weeks, two storylines dominate the NBA. The Milwaukee Bucks are coming off a 60-win season, but the Los Angeles Lakers are back … finally.

Three teams in the NBA have put together double-digit winning streaks so far this season. The Boston Celtics turned the trick from Oct. 25-Nov. 15, while the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers each reached the 10-game mark with wins on Friday night.

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The Bucks then won their 11th straight and now have the longest winning streak in the NBA after a 41-point drubbing of the Charlotte Hornets Saturday at Fiserv Forum.

The Lakers (17-2) and Bucks (17-3) have pulled away from the pack a bit with the two best records in the NBA. Los Angeles has opened a three-game lead over the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference, while out East, Milwaukee is TWO games up on the Toronto Raptors.

For success-starved fans in Southern California, it feels like it’s been an eternity since the Lakers had any success. The fact of the matter, however, is that the six straight seasons Los Angeles has missed the postseason entering the 2019-20 NBA campaign is the longest such streak in franchise history.

Prior to that, the Lakers had only missed the playoffs in consecutive years one time (1975 and 1976).

So you’ll forgive fans in Wisconsin is they don’t want to hear any loud sobbing from Hollywoodland.

The Bucks won 60 games last season and reached the conference finals for the first time since 2001 before a 2-0 lead in the series turned into four straight wins by the Toronto Raptors.

Milwaukee achieved NBA success very quickly once it returned to the NBA with the expansion Bucks in 1968. In just their third season, 1970-71, the Bucks won the NBA title — the fastest expansion team to do so in NBA history. Milwaukee went back to the NBA Finals in 1974, losing a Game 7 at home to the Boston Celtics.

Annnnnnnd, that’s all, folks. It’s been 45 years (and counting) since the Bucks were in the Finals and 48 years (and counting) since Milwaukee won its lone NBA championship.

Since the Bucks were last in the Finals 1974, the Lakers have won 10 NBA titles– most recently in 2010 — and played in the big series at the end 16 times.

The 10 titles are more than any team except the Boston Celtics has won in all 73 seasons of the NBA and its predecessor, the Basketball Association of America. The Lakers’ 16 Finals appearances since 1974 are more than any other franchise in the league over that time.

Milwaukee has answered the early challenges this season after the Philadelphia 76ers were predicted by most to fly past the Bucks into supremacy in the East. Los Angeles was picked by some to potentially contend, but it was their Staples Center companions — the LA Clippers — that were getting the most preseason buzz.

The two franchises have been linked for decades by the career of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer who played his first six seasons in Milwaukee before forcing a trade to the Lakers in 1975, where he played his final 14 years.

But this season, there might be a new link between Milwaukee and L.A. — a potential collision course for the Larry O’Brien Trophy.

Here are this week’s rankings, beginning at the No. 30 spot.

Last week: Lost to Minnesota 125-113, lost at Milwaukee 111-102, lost at Indiana 105-104 (OT), lost at Houston 158-111

This week: Monday vs. Golden State, Wednesday vs. Brooklyn

The Atlanta Hawks went 0-4 last week, extending their losing skid to 10 games and closing out a month of November during which they were 2-13.

Atlanta ended November by surrendering 158 points at Houston on Saturday — the most points ever allowed by the Hawks in a regulation game. The previous worst had been 156 points given up to the Cincinnati Royals on Dec. 5, 1969 — nearly 50 years ago. The franchise record for points allowed is 168 to the Chicago Bulls in a four-overtime loss on March 1 of this year.

Kevin Huerter is nearing a return from his strained rotator cuff, while John Collins remains out for another 10 games as he serves a 25-game suspension after testing positive for a banned substance.

The silver lining in the dark cloud of a week is Trae Young, who dropped a career-high 49 points in the overtime loss at Indiana on Friday. In four games for the week, Young averaged 38.0 points, 7.3 assists and 3.6 rebounds in 35.9 minutes per game, shooting 51.0 percent overall and canning 50.0 percent on 10.5 3-point attempts a night.